Cold emailing works really well when done right.
Here are some pointers to keep in mind when emailing people you’ve never interacted with in the past.
Follow the steps and you’ll have a killer cold email campaign at your disposal.
- Domain setup + DNS settings – Use a custom domain to send your emails
This requires setting up the following DNS entries –
DKIM – Email authentication to prevent spoofing, spam & verify email authenticity
SPF – Indicates which email servers are authorized to send email on behalf of the domain
Custom domain tracking – Tools such as Mailshake & lemlist recommend setting up a DNS entry on your domain to track email opens, clicks, replies, etc.
Warm up your email address – Send out emails to known contacts to see which folder the email lands in. Request them to mark the email as “not spam” in case it lands in spam.
The idea is to slowly ramp up the email sending & you want to ensure that all emails land in the inbox folder for your prospects.
- Targeting – Use at least 3-4 criteria to target your audience list in order to the relevant. I normally use LeadFuze or FindThatLead to source out my prospects.
Figure out who you want to approach – decision maker level (CXO, senior manager, manager, etc), department (marketing, operations, etc), industry (hospitality, banking, services, etc), employee size (0-10, 10-100, etc), technologies being used (G Suite, Hubspot, etc), demographics (city, state, region), latest news (hiring, expanding growth, received funding, etc)
I use a typical bucket size of 300-500 contacts to understand how people are responding to the messaging.
- Run Ads – Create a custom audience set on Facebook or LinkedIn & run ads specifically for the email addresses you’ve sourced out earlier.
The objective is to showcase your brand to the prospect for 1-2 weeks in advance of your emails to ensure that they are a little warmed up to your brand before they receive an offer from you.
- Build relationships – Try to connect with the person you’re emailing by finding common ground.
This can be an event you’re attending in the future, an industry you’re both in, something you both enjoy or are both passionate about. I normally offer something of value to the prospect in return for them reading my email. This can be a case study, white paper, an offer or anything that will help the prospect with a problem they are potentially facing that your resource solves.
The goal is to make the email about them & help them out in some way before asking for something in return. Most of the time cold emailers ask for a virtual meeting, time for a sit down, etc. As someone being emailed out of the blue, the probability for me to agree to a meeting is extremely low unless it’s something or someone I’m really interested in.
Connecting with the other person like a human being helps break the ice.
Over the course of the email sequence, try to offer the prospect something they can’t refuse.
- Subject line – Try to keep this short & relevant to the prospect
Don’t be misleading with your subject lines. Misleading subject lines result in great open rates but your prospect won’t respond to you except to unsubscribe perhaps.
Be casual, look up conversations with your friends and use that as a reference when emailing other human beings. Don’t be a robot with your emails.
I normally collect the best cold emails I’ve received in the past to use as a reference when emailing others.
Look back at #3 & try to include something common in the email subject. Have a good hook to capture the prospect’s attention.
Some exceptions I’ve found that have worked well with longer subject lines are for meeting up at events
Let’s meet at SEMrush Bangalore {Name}
As long as you’re being specific, longer subject lines work well.
- Be unique – Don’t copy everyone else
It’s a great idea to look at email copy & templates that others are using or those you’ve received in the past but don’t blindly copy those. Most of the templates have been overused & results in reduced effectiveness when a prospect sees the same copy over and over again. A good way to look at this is through the lens of marginal utility. As you consume more and more of something, the satisfaction & benefit derived from it reduces.
Call-to-action (CTA) – Be specific with your Call to action
When you’ve got a CTA in your email copy, be specific with your options. Don’t leave it open ended. For instance –
What time works for you?
This is too generic & open ended, instead force the prospect to make a choice –
Are you free at 10AM or 4PM?
This forces the prospect to choose and results in a higher probability of landing the meeting.
- Follow up – Don’t stop following up too soon.
When you’re setting up an email sequence, account for multiple follow ups & ensure that each follow up is unique & relevant.
The magic number on the number of follow ups is 7 according to a study conducted by SalesFolk.
Look at follow up emails as an opportunity to connect with the prospect but make sure that you’re not being pushy.
- A/B Testing – Test everything & keep testing
Test your subject lines to see what is performing best – Good open rates are indicative of great performing subject lines
The reply rate or action taken by the prospect is reflective of the email body (intro + copy).
Finally, don’t use a personal Gmail account to send out cold emails. Google has harsher limits for their free accounts plus you are unable to setup any DNS entries to correctly authenticate & track the email without being flagged as spam.
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